Use Automations to send text messages to your contacts, triggered by contact activity or updates. For example, when someone completes your form and is added as a contact, you can send them a welcome text with a thank you message or promotional offer.
Currently, you can only send SMS text messages to US and Canadian mobile phone numbers.
You’ll need to receive opt-in consent from your contacts to send them marketing text messages and receive a separate opt-in consent for non-marketing text messages. This opt-in consent must be mapped to the SMS subscription status contact property. Currently, Typeform offers one phone number per account to send SMS and one SMS subscription status property per contact. If you’re sending both marketing and non-marketing text messages, you won’t be able to map consent for both use cases to the one SMS subscription status property. Please see the suggested workaround in the FAQ section.
Non-essential (marketing) text messages will be sent within the hours of 8 am to 9 pm in the recipients’ time zone (based on the mobile number’s prefix) to stay compliant with TCPA laws. If a text message is triggered to send during quiet hours (9 pm to 8 am), the SMS will be delayed until non quiet hours. Learn more about SMS text message regulations here.
What you’ll need:
- A Typeform account on the Plus, Business, Talent, Growth Flow, Growth Custom, or Enterprise plan.
- The Contacts and automations add-on (Growth Flow plan automatically includes the Contacts and automations add-on).
- A form that asks for respondents’ phone number and consent to contact them.
- A verified toll-free number - this will be your sending number (the number that SMS messages come from).
- Make sure to check the information that is needed to verify your sending number in the Verifying your toll-free number section. The process can take up to 3 weeks.
Create your consent form
Respondents need to be saved as contacts in your Typeform account and must give consent to receive SMS messages. The following items are required in your form:
- Email address question - required for a respondent to be saved as a contact
- Consent to receiving emails question - mapping this question to the Email subscription status is required for the respondent to be saved as a contact
- US/Canada mobile number question - add this to your form and make it required so you can collect phone numbers and send text messages
- A link to your privacy policy and terms & conditions - you cannot use Typeform’s privacy policy and terms & conditions
- Your company’s name and logo
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An opt-in checkbox question to receive text messages - required, the respondent must consent to receiving text messages. In the opt-in checkbox question, it must include the following disclaimers:
- Message and data rates may apply, and frequency varies
- Consent isn’t a condition of purchase
- Reply HELP for help or STOP to cancel at any time
The type of SMS you send (non-marketing or marketing) determines how many opt-in consent checkbox questions you need. You’ll need one opt-in checkbox question for non-marketing SMS and a separate opt-in checkbox question for marketing SMS. Alternatively, you can create separate consent forms for the different types of SMS you’ll send, one consent form for receiving non-marketing SMS and a separate consent form for receiving marketing SMS.
- Non-marketing SMS (e.g. account notifications, customer support, delivery notifications) - you can group multiple non-marketing SMS use cases under a single opt-in checkbox, but each use case must be listed in the text of the opt-in checkbox question.
- Marketing SMS (e.g. promotions, offers, newsletters) - marketing SMS will need a separate opt-in consent checkbox from the non-marketing SMS opt-in checkbox. You can group multiple marketing SMS use cases under a single opt-in checkbox, but you can't combine a marketing use case with a non-marketing use case in the same checkbox.
We’ll refer to this form as a consent form, but you can create any form that fits your use case, you’ll just need to add the required items in the form. A link to your consent form is required when submitting your request to verify your toll-free number.
1. Use the Phone Number or Contact Info question type to ask respondents for their US or Canadian mobile number. The Phone Number and Contact Info question types will ensure phone numbers are formatted correctly.
Make sure to set this question as required as this is the phone number SMS text messages will be sent to.
If you’re using a Short or Long Text question type to ask respondents for their phone number, make sure to include a note informing respondents that they must enter their mobile phone number with the + symbol followed by their county code. SMS text messages can only be sent to US or Canadian based numbers, respondents will need to enter +1 followed by their phone number.
Additionally, you can use Answer validation to ensure phone numbers are entered in the correct format.
2. Use the Email or Contact Info question type to ask for an email address and set it as required.
3. Add a Yes/No, Multiple Choice, Picture Choice, or Checkbox question to ask respondents if they consent to receiving emails from you.
4. Use the Checkbox question type for respondents’ to opt-in to receiving SMS text messages from you.
You’ll need to include the exact text in the box below in your opt-in checkbox so respondents clearly understand potential carrier charges, how often you’ll text them, and how to get help or opt out. This is standard language mobile carriers require for SMS messaging and helps keep your form compliant with messaging rules:
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The type of SMS you send (non-marketing or marketing) determines how many opt-in consent checkbox questions you need:
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Non-marketing SMS (e.g. account notifications, customer support, delivery notifications) - you can group multiple non-marketing SMS use cases under a single opt-in checkbox, but each use case must be listed in the text of the opt-in checkbox question.
- Example: You agree to receive transactional and operational texts from [Company], including account notifications, customer support, and delivery updates. Message and data rates may apply, and frequency varies. Consent isn't a condition of purchase. Reply HELP for help or STOP to cancel at any time.
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Marketing SMS (e.g. promotions, offers, newsletters) - marketing SMS will need a separate opt-in consent checkbox from the non-marketing SMS opt-in checkbox. You can group multiple marketing SMS use cases under a single opt-in checkbox, but you can't combine a marketing use case with a non-marketing use case in the same checkbox.
- Example: You agree to receive marketing texts from [Company]. Message and data rates may apply, and frequency varies. Consent isn't a condition of purchase. Reply HELP for help or STOP to cancel at any time.
5. The opt-in checkbox question must also include:
- A link to your privacy policy
- A link to your terms & conditions
The privacy policy and terms & conditions must be written in clear and concise language. Below is an example that can be adapted for your own company:
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SMS Terms of Service
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Learn how to hyperlink text in a question here.
6. The consent form must display your company’s branding as this is required to verify your toll-free number. Add your company name and logo to the form.
Additionally, we recommend removing Typeform’s branding from the form.
7. Publish your form by clicking the Share/Publish edits button and get the link to your form.
You’ll need a link to your consent form in the next section to verify your toll-free number.
Verifying your toll-free number
Verifying your toll-free number can take up to 3 weeks. In the instructions below, we’ll walk you through where you can verify your toll-free number. The following information is needed when submitting for verification:
- Business name
- Business website
- Business registration country
- Ownership type (Business type)
- Business registration authority
- Business registration number
- Business address
- Contact name
- Contact email
- Contact phone number
- Estimated SMS messages per month
- What type of SMS messages will you send (marketing and promotional messages or non promotion messages)
- Describe in detail how your business will use SMS
- Example of the SMS message you’ll send
- How you’ll ask SMS recipients for consent (verbal, web form, paper form, text message, QR code, or import)
- Public link to your consent method
- The consent form must include the items described in the Create your consent form section above
- Link to privacy policy
- Link to terms and conditions
When you submit your toll-free number for verification, the information you provide must be consistent. Your selected use cases, the wording in your opt-in consent form, and the example messages you share should all match.
1. From your workspace, click on the organization menu and select Admin settings.
2. Scroll down to the Automated text messages (SMS) section and click Register for a number.
3. Fill in your business details and click Continue.
4. Select the estimated amount of SMS messages you’ll send per month in the dropdown and select what type of SMS messages you’ll send.
Then enter in detail how your business will use SMS and an example of the text message you’ll send. Your example text message must include text on how to opt out of text messages (Reply STOP to opt out).
Click Continue when you’re ready.
5. Select how you’ll ask for consent from recipients and paste the link to your consent form. Then click Continue.
6. Add links to your privacy policy and terms & conditions. Click Submit form when you’re done.
7. Your verification will now have the In review status.
The verification process can take up to 3 weeks. You’ll receive an email from Twilio (SMS text message provider) notifying you if your number has been approved or rejected. If your number has been rejected, Twilio will provide the reason for rejection.
Try to get your number verification right the first time. If it’s rejected, you’ll need to resubmit and wait for another review period, and you won’t be able to send SMS messages until your number is approved.
After your verification number is approved, any new Checkbox question you add to future forms will include a Collect SMS consent toggle in its settings. Turn this on to automatically include the default consent text in your forms.
Below you’ll find some common reasons why a number can be rejected:
- The HELP/STOP keywords are missing from the text in the opt-in checkbox question.
- Use case mismatch. For example, a marketing use case was selected during verification but only a non-marketing opt-in checkbox question was provided in the consent form or vice versa.
- Message examples don’t match the use case. For example, a marketing-style example message was submitted when a non-marketing use case was selected.
- Privacy policy is too generic. A standard terms & conditions without an SMS-specific privacy statement will not pass verification.
- Typeform branding is used in the consent form. The form can have the Powered by Typeform button that is shown at the footer of the form itself but your company’s name and logo must appear in the form.
Add contact properties to your contacts database
To be able to send SMS text messages to contacts, you’ll need to add the standard Phone number property to your contacts. This is the property you can map respondent’s phone numbers to and is used as the number you can send SMS text messages to.
1. From your workspace, click Contacts.
2. Click Actions and then select + Add property.
3. Select Phone number from the list of properties.
4. After you add the Phone number property, the SMS subscription status property will automatically be added.
You can’t use a custom contact property to store respondents’ phone numbers. The standard Phone number property is required because it’s linked to the SMS subscription status property, which is required for sending text messages.
5. Add any additional contact properties you’d like. More information on how to create and manage your contact properties can be found here.
Map form responses to contact properties to create contacts
After adding in contact properties, you can then map your form’s questions to them. This will then save each respondent as a contact.
1. From your contacts database, click Add contact.
2. Click Add through forms.
3. Select the workspace your consent form lives in and then select your consent form from the dropdowns. Click Continue.
4. Next, map your form’s questions to your contact properties. Make sure to map the following questions to the corresponding contact properties to create a contact and be able to send them text messages.
- Email question = Email property
- Consent to receiving emails question = Email subscription status
- Phone number question = Phone Number
- Consent to receiving text messages checkbox question = SMS subscription status
- By default all contacts will have Never Subscribed as their SMS subscription status. Contacts will only be opted-in if they’ve clicked on the consent checkbox to receive text messages and their SMS subscription status will update to Subscribed.
Map any other questions to contact properties. Click Save when you’re done mapping.
More information on how to map form responses to contact properties, check out this article.
Create an SMS automation
You can only create an automation to send text messages after your toll-free number has been verified.
1. Click Automations.
2. Click + Create automation.
3. Select Contact activity or updates.
4. Give your automation a name by clicking the default name in the top left corner.
5. In the right side menu, select how you would like to trigger this automation. We’ll select Contact is created.
6. Click the + icon to add an action.
7. Select Send text (SMS).
8. In the right side menu, enter in the message you want to send as a text message. Additionally, if you’re sending marketing SMS, toggle on the unsubscribe instructions for recipients as this is required.
You can enter up to 320 characters total. This includes the unsubscribe instructions.
You can preview what your text message will look like in the field below.
Add any additional time delays or actions to your automation. For more information on creating automations from contact updates, check out this article.
9. Click Activate when you’re done with setting up your automation.
Now when a respondent becomes a contact, they’ll receive a text message.
To delete the Send text (SMS) action, click Delete action in the bottom right corner.
SMS subscription status and reply messages
Contacts that've clicked the opt-in consent checkbox in your consent form will have the SMS subscription status Subscribed. Contacts that haven't clicked on the opt-in consent checkbox will have the default Never Subscribed SMS subscription status.
If a contact has replied UNSUBSCRIBE or STOP to your text message, they’ll receive a message to confirm that they’ve been successfully unsubscribed.
This will also automatically update their SMS subscription status to Unsubscribe in your contacts database.
If the contact has replied START or UNSTOP, they’ll be re-subscribed to receiving text messages and their SMS subscription status will update to Subscribed.
If the contact has replied HELP, they’ll receive a message with instructions on how to unsubscribe.
Their subscription status will remain unchanged, the HELP reply doesn’t affect it.
You can also manually edit the SMS subscription status for a contact.
1. Click on the expand icon on a contact's email.
2. Click on the pencil icon to edit the contact.
3. Scroll down to the SMS subscription status property and click the dropdown to edit the subscription status. Click Save when you’re done.
FAQ
Can I transfer my existing phone number to be the sending number for SMS text messages?
No, transferring your phone number to be the sending number is not supported.
Can I pick my sending number?
No, toll-free numbers are randomly allocated when your phone number verification is approved.
Is my sending number branded?
No, the sending number is a standard toll-free number with no visible branding.
What happens if I send a SMS text message outside of the US or Canada?
Recipients in other countries may receive a SMS text message but it’s not guaranteed or recommended. SMS text messages sent to most destinations outside of the US and Canada may not be delivered.
Do I have to pay for my toll-free sending number?
No, the toll-free sending number is included in the price of your Typeform plan (Plus, Business, Talent, Growth Flow, Growth Custom, or Enterprise plan) and the Contacts & Automations add on. The Growth Flow plan automatically includes the Contacts and automations add-on.
What is the cost of sending SMS text messages?
You won’t be charged per SMS text message sent. The price of sending SMS text messages is included in your Typeform plan (Plus, Business, Talent, Growth Flow, Growth Custom, or Enterprise plan) and the Contacts & Automations add on. The Growth Flow plan automatically includes the Contacts and automations add-on.
How long can my text messages be?
A standard SMS message is 160 characters. Messages longer than 160 characters will be split into 2 messages. You can enter up to 320 characters.
If I send 2 text messages in one automation, does that count as 1 action or 2 actions?
In each automation, you can add multiple actions. If you’ve added 2 actions within 1 automation, this will count as 2 actions. If your automation triggers two text messages, this is counted as 2 actions. Each text message action counts as a separate action.
Learn more about actions here.
How can I test sending SMS messages?
After completing your Automation set up, you can fill out your consent form with your US or Canadian number to send a test SMS message.
How can I map opt-in consent for both marketing and non-marketing text messages?
non-marketing SMS. You’ll then need to map consent to the SMS subscription status property in your contacts database. Currently within Typeform’s contacts database, it only has one SMS subscription status property per contact. If you’re sending both marketing and non-marketing text messages, you won’t be able to map consent for both use cases to the one SMS subscription status property. Below is a suggested workaround.
Note! If a contact replies to the SMS text message with STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE, this will unsubscribe them from all SMS text messages. There isn’t a way for the contact to unsubscribe from a specific use case (marketing or non-marketing).
This workaround creates a path for who the automation runs for and will only send text messages to contacts that have Subscribed for their SMS subscription status.
1. Create two separate forms to collect consent for each type of SMS text message you’ll send. One to collect consent for marketing SMS and another to collect consent for non-marketing SMS (e.g. transactional SMS). Use the Checkbox question type to collect consent.
2. Add a custom URL parameter to each form. For example, you can add a URL parameter called subtype. The URL parameter will be used to identify which type of use case the contact consented to (subscribed to marketing or non-marketing SMS).
- When you send out the forms to collect consent, you can enter marketing for the subtype URL parameter on the marketing consent form and enter transactional for the subtype URL parameter on the transactional consent form.
3. Create a custom contact property Sub Type and use the Text property type. The data from the URL parameter will be mapped to this custom contact property.
4. Create two contact lists filtered by the Sub Type contact property:
- Opt-in marketing contact list - add a filter on the Sub Type contact property that it should contain marketing.
- Opt-in transactional contact list - add a filter on the Sub Type contact property that it should contain transactional.
5. Map form responses from both forms to contact properties.
- Map the opt-in checkbox on both forms to the SMS subscription status property.
- Map the subtype URL parameter on both forms to the Sub Type contact property you created.
6. Create your automation to send SMS text messages and set the trigger to start the automation when a contact is added to the Opt-in marketing contact list or when a contact is added to the Opt-in transactional contact list.